Language - English
Genre - Horror, Sci-Fi
The
Quatermass Xperiment is the first of four films following the
adventures of the British scientist Professor Quatermass. The
film started life as a BBC series but most of the episodes have been
lost. It was later made into a film by Hammer Horror as one of
their first films.
The
film starts with a rocket crash landing on a farm. The rocket
was part of a government experiment for the first manned flight into
space. The project was headed by Professor Quatermass who is in
trouble for launching the rocket early. The rocket had a crew
of three but when it is opened there is only one person aboard,
Victor Carroon. The space suit's of the other astronauts are
still intact and the door has not been opened. As the rocket
has been in space there is no where the other astronauts could have
gone.
Victor
is very ill and is kept at Quatermass' lab. At the same time
Scotland Yard begin an investigator to find out what has happened to
the other men, this is led by Inspector Lomax. Quatermass thinks the
investigation is a waste of time as no one at Scotland Yard is
qualified to investigate anything that happens in space.
Victor
is moved to a hospital when it is decided that there is not enough
medical equipment in Quatermass' lab. Victor's wife, Judith
tries to break him out of the hospital but, in the few minuets
he is left alone Victor pushes his hand into a cactus and he kills
the man who was helping her. As Victor goes on a killing
spree he slowly changes into something else and Quatermass and Lomax
realise they are dealing with an alien invasion.
The
Quatermass Xperiment was released in 1955 and, in my opinion it still
holds up now. Admittedly some of the technology is a bit dated
but, as Quatermass' lab is mentioned to be quite hi tec it's not that
bad. The film does not rely to heavily on special effects and
the creature at the end is not seem much so this does not go against
it. It has a good story and characters.
Quatermass
starts wanting to be in control of everything and he finds the
involvement of Scotland Yard nothing but an annoyance. As the
film progresses he begins to realise that, even though he has the
most knowledge on the rocket and space side he is not equipped to
deal with the situation. He begins to release some control of
the situation when he is convinced to let Victor go to a hospital
and, once Victor is on the loose he knows that he needs the police to
help track him down. It does seem to annoy Quatermass that he
is equipped to deal with everything and this is evident at the end of
the film when he takes control of the situation ignoring every done
else to stop the creature.
Inspector
Lomax is almost the other side of the coin to Quatermass. He
realises from the beginning that he is ill equipped to deal with the
situation but he knows that he has a job to do. There are a
couple of scenes at the start of the film where Lomax could have
become the comic relief as a bumbling detective who is out of his
depth but this is cut short when he goes to Quatermass offering to
help him in stead of trying to handle everything himself.
Victor,
as the monster is handled well. As I have said the film is not
effects heavy. For most of the time we see Victor as a normal
man although his features are drawn out . Most of the
transformation is kept to his arm which he keeps hidden for a lot of
the film. Victor is portrayed as scared and in pain for most of
the film, needing to feed but fighting for his humanity. This
is most apparent in a scene where he meets a little girl by a river.
The scene has a striking similarity’s it to a scene in
Frankenstein. In both tales the monster meets a little girl by
a river but in Frankenstein the monster kills the girl by accident
and this helps the creature realise what he is and that he does not
want to live, making him more human. In the Quatermass
Xperiment Victor does not kill the girl and goes on to become ore
monstrous, loosing his humanity. In a way the character
of Victor is almost a reverse of Frankenstein monster, the monster
starts as a none human creation and becomes more human where as
Victor starts out human and becomes more monstrous. The similarity
are only heighten by the creature in the Quatermass Xperiment bearing
the name of the man who d created the monster in Frankenstein.
The
monster at the end of the film is not shown much. When we do
see it we get the feeling that it is some kind of plant jellyfish,
it is resting so not moving much which is good because if they
had put to much movement into it I think it would have looked dated
now.
By
the standards of today's films the Quatermass Xperiment is not too
scary. When it was first released in the UK it was given an X
rating (an 18 in today's ratings) but modern releases have been
dropped to a pig (children can watch with there parents). There
are some creepy parts to the film but it does rely on its story and
characters.
Well
worth a watch in my opinion but if you don't fancy it in black and
white the series was remade in 2002 and this is also worth a watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment